Sacrifices paying off

ToMoRRoW marks the one-year anniversary of the first Covid-19 lockdown. The past 12 months have been among the most trying the United Kingdom has seen in peacetime.

We have all been required to make lifealtering sacrifices: an entire economy moved into the spare room, families forbidden to gather or hug, our children kept home from school and no Christmas worth the name. We have been able to bury our dead only under the most exacting restrictions.

The worst of it is that, when lockdown is lifted, the viral pandemic is predicted to be replaced by an epidemic of unemployment. The Chancellor’s job retention scheme has maintained the illusion that a year of lockdown was cost-free. once that scheme is retired, we will be rudely confronted by those costs. We cannot shy away from these realities but nor can we wallow in them.

We have a vaccine that is being rolled out at speeds that are the envy of Europe. We in Scotland are benefiting in that regard from the broad shoulders and deep pockets of our precious Union. We are finally able to begin reopening our communities.

The sacrifices were onerous, but we made them. At last, they are paying off.